The Daily Startup: Japanese Firm CyberAgent to Debut Yuan Fund for China Deals

Japanese venture firm CyberAgent Ventures will debut a yuan-denominated fund this May to invest solely in Chinese companies, according to Joey Dai, the head of CyberAgent’s Beijing office. CyberAgent Ventures is targeting 100 million yuan ($16 million) for the maiden vehicle to be invested in mobile Internet companies, such as businesses involved in social networking and games for smartphones. The fund will commit CNY3 million to CNY5 million per Chinese company, Mr. Dai said.

Avitide raised an undisclosed amount of Series A financing in early March, to further develop its technology which could make the process of developing biopharmaceuticals, such as antibody and protein drugs, less costly and complex. Antibodies such as Humira, which treats inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, produced $7.9 billion in 2011 sales for Abbott Laboratories. Avitide’s Series A round was led by Borealis Ventures, joined by Polaris Partners, SV Life Sciences and OrbiMed Advisors.

Also in today’s VentureWire, Two partners from El Dorado Ventures, an early-stage venture firm that hasn’t raised a fund in eight years, have set out to raise as much as $100 million for a new firm called Icon Venture Partners…In a move that harkens back to the first Web boom, a pair of serial entrepreneurs have raised seed funding for YaSabe–an Hispanic portal which plans to generate revenue through advertising…and Sorenson Capital Partners pledged $20 million to take a part of cybersecurity business AccessData Group as the company looks to grab a larger share of the $60 billion-plus market.

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Elsewhere around the Web:

In a small home office in Philadelphia–not Silicon Valley–works 28-year-old Loren Brichter, one of the most influential apps developers. The Wall Street Journal has more in its ongoing series “The Business of Apps.”

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